The present invention relates to optical fibre locating apparatus and in particular to such apparatus for locating an optical fibre with respect to a planar surface.
Techniques for cleaving optical fibres to ensure that the cleaved end is perpendicular are now well established. In setting up optical apparatus such as fibre lasers or fibre amplifiers it is often necessary to align the fibre with a planar member such as a semi-transmitting mirror or a cover shield. Such alignment requires extreme accuracy and may involve minute adjustments using several micrometer screws. As may be appreciated this set-up procedure can take several hours.
Accordingly if a system requires reconfiguration, for example, to use a different fibre or to change the transmission frequency of a mirror a large time overhead may be incurred.